New Products

Building a Catalog of Online Products

How many times have you heard that you must have your own products in order to make money online? How many times have you seen someone offering a course on how to make big money writing eBooks? How many times has something about the pitch just seemed wrong? Or at least sounded a little like snake-oil?

Well, you’re right to question the concept.

Yes, you really do need to have a list and your own products in order to make the big money in internet marketing. But you’re never going to make a fortune with a single eBook. Sorry, it isn’t going to happen. At least it isn’t going to happen to the vast majority of us.

In order to make money over the internet, you need a catalog of online products. Not just one product but a line of related products. After all, once you sell one product to a person and turned them into a rabid fan, wouldn’t it make sense to try to sell them more products? In any other market that’s where your major sales come from. And the internet really isn’t any different. But to do that you need a product line, meaning a catalog of related online products.

But how do you do this?

In this article, I’m going to explain one technique for building a catalog of online products.

Creating an online product always begins with an analysis of your customers. It can be existing or it can be a predicted customer. In any case, you need to develop a picture of your target customer.

Once you’ve done that you need to identify their motivators. What is it that will make them want to buy your product? What problems are they facing? What is going to happen in their future that they want to avoid? What would they like to happen?

Step three is to determine a solution. How can your topic or product solve their problem? How can you create a teachable system for solving their problems, achieving their goals or avoiding their fears?

Okay, now you’ve got something to sell them. All that’s necessary is to turn it into a product. Or two. Or three.

Start by identifying what products you need to create to support this line. What will be your freemium? What will be your introductory product? What will be your midrange product? What will be your high value product? Now keep going. What will be your marketing products?

Now that you’ve got one product line defined it’s time to consider the rest of your catalog. Start by going down. How many other people can you sell this product to with only minor adjustments?

Then go wide. What similar products can you create that your customers might like?